Pathogen — Moribund Manifesto
Moribund Manifesto is the sixth full-length from this four-piece Philippino death metal crew. It’s an eight-track affair that finds the DM form presented in a blunt, at times very crusty ‘n’ cruel state- with touches of both doom and grindcore added into the mix too.
The album appeared in May of 2022- presented as either a CD, or cassette( either transparent blue or transparent)- I’m reviewing the former. The CD comes presented in a clear jewel case- with an eight-page inlay booklet- featuring on the cover a flaming armed horned demon in a cave, and inside monochrome images of the band and full lyrics.
The album opens up with “Lament Of The Graveless”- this is the longest track here at seven and a bit minute mark, and it’s also the most evenly mid-paced/doom-influenced thing on the album. The tracks built around a central prime evil bound ‘n’ chug riff, which is edged by smashing ‘n’ crashing drum tones, and slightly gurgling grunts. From time to time we take off to slightly more speeding runs, and some of these feature some quite harmonic soloing which rather brought to mind James Murphy's work on Obituary's Cause Of Death.
As we move on we have vicious ‘n’ speeding chug meets barked baying growl of “Scourging Across The Curse Realms” which features once again some great moments of harmonic leads, blended in nicely gunning brutality of the main riff. There’s smarting cymbal hissed speed DM prime evilness of “The Abominant Relics” which at points shifts into rapid grind-death crossbreeds, as well as some great head-banging breakdowns.
Towards the latter part of the album, we have “To The Dismal Depths” which shifts from more pacy ‘n’ chug heavy doom craft, onto cymbal smarted DM gallops, and a great scrawling more caustic solo break. With the album topped off with “Enraptured By Evil” which is all speeding drum rush, bayed growls, and sloppily prime evil riffing.
Throughout Moribund Manifesto, Pathogen highlights their ability to pen meaty evil-yet-memorable riff craft-set in a blunt and crashing production, all finished off with those wonderfully atmospheric and melodic moments of lead soloing.